It Happened One Summer (It Happened One Summer 1)

Hannah was not a drinker. Thanks to four glasses of wine, many attempts were made to get a non-blurry picture of Piper before an adequate one was selected.

Piper applied a filter before swiping over to Instagram. Automatically, she tapped her notifications. “Oh, look at that.” Her pulse stuttered. “Brendan followed me.” She tapped his profile and choked. “Oh. I’m the only one he’s following. He just joined.”

Hannah squished her cheeks together. “Oh boy. Rookie move.”

“Yeah . . .” But it was a really, really endearing move, too.

How did she feel about Brendan looking at her plethora of side boob and booty? Even her most modest pictures were kind of provocative. What if her lack of modesty turned him off? Did he really create a profile just to follow her?

Maybe Hannah had a point about social media having too much ownership over her thoughts and enjoyment. Now she was going to spend the next three days wondering which pictures Brendan looked at and what he thought about them. Would he laugh at her captions? If this Instagram feed was his glimpse into Piper Bellinger’s life, would it override the real-life impression she’d given him?

“You should have seen this little record shop, Pipes,” Hannah said around a sip of wine. Leave it to her sister to wax poetic about a record store after too much to drink, instead of an ex-boyfriend or a crush. As far back as she could remember, Hannah had been hunkered down in headphones, her face buried in song lyrics. When she turned sixteen, Piper brought Hannah to her first concert—Mumford & Sons—and the poor girl had almost passed out from stimuli. Her soul was made of musical notes. “They had a poster for a 1993 Alice in Chains concert. Just tacked to the wall! Because they haven’t had a chance to take it down!”

Piper smiled at her sister’s enthusiasm. “Why didn’t you buy anything?”

“I wanted to. There was a really nice Purple Rain LP, but they had it way underpriced. It would have felt like stealing.”

“You’re a good apple, kid.” Piper had the niggling urge to scroll her Instagram feed and see everything through Brendan’s eyes, but she determinedly ignored it. “So. What’s Fox like?”

Hannah set down her glass. “Uh-uh. Don’t ask me like that.”

“What? He’s cute.”

“He’s not my type.”

“Not depressed and bitter enough?”

Her sister snorted. “His phone dinged like a hundred times in twenty minutes. That’s either one passionate girl or several admirers, and my money is on the latter.”

“Yeah,” Piper admitted. “He did have that playboy look about him.”

Hannah swung her feet. “Besides, I think he was just doing the wingman thing. He wasted no time extolling Brendan’s virtues.”

“Oh?” Piper took a too-casual gulp of wine. “What did Fox have to say about him? Just out of curiosity.”

Her sister narrowed her eyes. “Tell me you’re not interested in him.”

“Whoa. I’m not. His wedding ring is like, welded onto his finger.”

“And he’s mean to you.” Hannah shifted her weight on her stool, looking as if she was working up to saying something. “You’ve been tread on by some mean guys lately, all right? There was Adrian. The one before him who produced that sci-fi HBO pilot, whose name I can’t remember. I just want to make sure you’re not falling into a bad pattern.”

Piper reared back a little. “A pattern where I pick men who’ll make me feel shitty?”

“Well . . . yeah.”

She replayed her last three relationships. Which didn’t take that long, since collectively they’d lasted six weeks. “Shit. You might be onto something.”

“I am?” Hannah’s eyebrows shot up. “I mean . . . I know.”

“Okay, I’ll be more aware of it,” Piper said, rubbing at the dull ache in the center of her chest. If her sister was right, why was she picking bad apples on purpose? Did the idea of a good relationship scare her? Because she didn’t think she could pull one off? It was not only possible, but probable. Still, putting Brendan in the “bad apple” category didn’t quite sit right. “None of those other guys were the type to apologize. They definitely weren’t the kind of guys who’d pine for their dead wife. I think maybe I’m just curious about Brendan more than anything else. We don’t grow them like him in LA.”

“That is true.”

“We had an actual conversation without sexual overtones. Neither one of us checked our phones even once. It was fucking weird. I’m probably just . . . fascinated.”

“Well, be careful.” Tongue tucked in the corner of her mouth, Hannah started folding a bar napkin into an airplane. “Or have some fun with Fox instead. Bet it would be way less complicated.”

Piper couldn’t even remember the guy’s face. Only that she’d classified it as attractive.

Now, Brendan’s face. She could recall crow’s-feet fanning out at the corners of his eyes. The silver flecks dotting the green of his irises. His gigantic, weathered hands and the breadth of his shoulders.